Posted
by
Soulskillon Monday December 13, 2010 @06:36PM
from the keep-your-grubby-mitts-off-my-htpc dept.

Phoghat writes with this excerpt from the Washington Post:
"It won't be long before video from the Internet is always within reach — whether it's on a smart phone, a tablet computer or a high-end television in your living room. But what if there's nothing worth watching? ... Regulators are pushing for tough conditions to ensure that Comcast can't stifle online video services by withholding content or pushing up prices for marquee NBC programs at a time viewers are starting to turn to the Internet for recent movies or the latest episodes of 'Saturday Night Live,' '30 Rock' and other popular TV shows. The concessions they extract from Comcast in its bid for NBC will help determine whether customers can someday realistically drop their cable subscriptions and go online-only for their TV. ... Comcast has been resisting federal regulators' efforts to tear down some of those walls, arguing that those efforts are unnecessary because NBC Universal accounts for about 10 percent of television viewing in the US and less than 10 percent of US box office revenue — and is therefore too small to dictate how the industry will develop."

If by proactive you mean re-branding "managed services" as net neutrality [arstechnica.com] and patting themselves on the back -- meanwhile blessing ISP throttling, and mobile throttling, [arstechnica.com] thus protecting corporate profit in an industry with already insanely high profit margins, at the expensive of the consumer and innovative companies like netflix... then, uh, yeah.

The FCC needs to wake the hell up and realize they aren't protecting competition in a nascent market but rather protecting the government granted monopolies which stifle innovation and are the very reason the market is still "nascent." This is why the US is so far behind in broadband. [slashdot.org]

Personally I suspect a lot of the news coming out now is orchestrated PR for the policy vote coming on the 21st. I think the FCC is putting out a lot of "we're fighting for the little guy" stories to soften the blow of toothless net neutrality policy that relies on the goodwill of ISPs to act "reasonably" and "transparently"

They don't even need to falsify. There are so many loopholes and write-downs that of course they can make these numbers up. If you are saying a 10% ROI/ROC, that's a pretty good number in reality...I suspect if you could get a hold of what they are telling their shareholders, you'll see a much more rosy picture their ROI/ROC numbers.

It's also interesting.. If it's such an insignificant % of the viewing numbers, why is a distribution channel looking into a content company? Could it be because they expect

He was writing a sarcastic post that was ever so slightly derogatory about Apple. His iPhone's Brand Image Integrity Sensor (R) (C) (TM) picked this up and dispatched a team of commandos driving black Priuses and wearing black turtleneck combat vests.

Good thing I don't have any Apple products in my home! The bastards can't get to disregard my previous statements. All is well. Hail Apple and Greatfather Jobs, for he brings glory to all of our iProducts.

Well, to be fair, you either do it "illegally" or you wait something like 6 - 15 days after "original airing" to see it (if it was a TV show). Some people don't care about the delay, others do. Obviously the delay is there to "protect" the premium advertising dollars that broadcast TV still pulls in. The question is, will the FCC back Comcast and other broadcasters plans and protect their business model. I think even the Comcast's of the world realize that the days of "broadcast TV" are numbered and that it

Unless you want to pay for TV content on a pay-per-view basis, the ad revenue pretty much has to be protected. Take away the ad revenue and you are going to take away commercially produced content because there will be no revenue.

Happy with only amature content? Hope so, because if the revenue disappears there will be no commercially produced content.

The TV providers and networks are suffering similar growing pains as the music industry -- the Internet is a major game changer that is impossible to ignore. These providers continue to rely on what I feel to be an antiquated "ratings" system by which the fate of many good programs is ill decided.

Today, it's not unusual for programs to come and go, sometimes abruptly due to "ratings". This puts the content providers in a difficult position where they must either fight tooth and nail to preserve their w

Tim Wu's new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires," is relevant and worth looking at here - if nothing else, read the salon.com review [salon.com]:

Wu, a prominent champion of net neutrality, proposes what he calls "a Separation Principle for the information economy." He wants to see "those who develop information, those who own the network infrastructure on which it travels, and those who control the tools or venues of access... kept apart from one another." He also wants the government to "keep its distance and not intervene in the market to favor any technology, network monopoly, or integration of the major functions of an information industry."

I'm sure the book is more nuanced than this, but IMHO allowing competitors to control access to each others' content is simply bound to fail, converging at a point advantageous to those who own the toll booths, and bad for almost everybody else and the economy and culture as a whole.

Call me crazy, but I like to watch networks' nightly news. It seems to me that because it is so mainstream, and not targeted to much of anybody in particular, that it is more balanced (compared to most Internet news sites). And because they are constrained to a 1/2 hour format, they don't waste so much time on talking heads, and repeating themselves (compared to cable news). Finally the production value is very high; they send people to do onsite reporting, obtain the best footage available, have more ac

I canceled my Cable and stopped watching all broadcast TV except for the local nightly news (mostly for the weather) more than a year ago. Everything I watch now is either on DVD or Netflix. The sense of enlightenment that comes from curing the affliction of television is not too dissimilar from Neo waking up to the real world for the first time.

Broadcast TV is a cancerous disease that needs to be eradicated for the benefit of society.

There's a certain amount of content that you lose by dropping cable/satellite TV, and going Netflix/Hulu. However, the savings of maybe $80+/month sure makes this choice a no-brainer. You could even buy those few series that you lose out on, on DVD so there's really not much of a loss.

I finally persuaded my spouse to drop TV early this year, and we don't miss it one bit.

I have an antenna and get the local stations in HD (which is brilliant) and I can watch ESPN3 and ESPN through the Internet, as well as all the other online services. I do have NetFlix for movies and instant. I also have an HDHomeRun to make HD tuners available to any computer on my network.

We actually DID miss cable this weekend when the CBS NFL game we wanted to watch wasn't the one scheduled for this "region." Of course, it wouldn't have been on regular cable either. It would have been the

The concept of having to wait watch videos at intervals set by a company is so very 1950s. This is the 21st century as we have something called on-demand. Yeah, cable companies do it to a small extent, but not like Netflix does. Combine that with the sub-par quality and speed they provide compared to DSL and they're going to be marginalized in the coming years. Even more so when the over 50 crowd dies.

Much like music and the RIAA, they're going to loose the center stage. Which means that you can expect them to start trying to buy politicians (or using the ones that they've already purchased) to pass laws that try to keep their antiquated method of business alive.

I was actually enjoying your comment until encountering this bit of prejudicial age-ist nonsense. In my experience, lack of imagination, fear of new things (including technology), and the reluctance/inability to change old habits (or deal with change in general) don't correlate very well with age. Today's youth could very well be in the same boat 30 years from now when their own inflexibility keeps them stuck while the world moves on. But there will be plenty that keep up just fine, regardless of age.

My apologies, it wasn't meant to be taken as a derogatory statement. I was referring to the force of habit. These people grew up with only scheduled television, so they'd be most likely to continue using it because it's what they've done the longest.

Just because I wrote something on the Internet doesn't mean I'm a troll.;)

These people grew up with only scheduled television, so they'd be most likely to continue using it because it's what they've done the longest.

Poppycock you whippersnapper. I am 61 years old and my home is fully wired to accept programming from cable, OTA HDTV, shortwave, and streaming over IP. Plus I frequently use streamed media from my own media server or physical media (SACD, DVD-A, CD, DVD or BluRay). My experience is that when a new technology is added it gets incorporated into my life in addition to w

You'd have to be totally disconnected from reality to think that you and your father are a representative sample. You might as well argue that young people don't like current pop music. Sure there is a minority that don't match the profile, but the OP said "most likely" not "always."

Dang it, we done had vcrs back in my day, sonny! That's nigh on thirty-five years ago! We knew scheduled television sucked, that is why we bought them expensive u-matic do-hickeys! (Well, that and the sepia films of lady's ankles)

Ahhh, the venerable VO-1600... I can imagine the lights dimming as that thing spun up the motors. Problem was it could bot schedule recordings, you had to set it's mechanical tuner to the station and press record while you watched something else. Problem was, it never recorded the whole show...Tapes were not long enough for a 1 hour show...

The phillips N-1500 was the first real VCR with a timer....

The pure smearing of the nasty NTSC video.... which you could not tell because broadcast was all smeared an

Yes, but there are things that younger generations feel differently about - homosexual marriage and recreational drug use, for instance. I can't remember anyone in my high school being against these things other than being opposed to them personally (i.e. "I'll never use drugs, but I don't care if someone else does") or religious reasons ("drugs are bad, gays will burn in hell, yadda yadda").

By the time my generation starts voting more heavily (as they age), most of the people who oppose the things they hav

I did the same about three months ago and haven't looked back once. What isn't on Netflix or Hulu can be found elsewhere.

For those that are watched elsewhere at a loss to the production company, it is nobody's fault but their own. Provide the video on Netflix or Hulu and make your respectable profit from ad revenue and subscription fees, or don't be surprised when your viewership and ratings plummet and illegal sharing skyrockets.

Not live sports. Some of us went to engineering schools that had football teams.

There is no reasonable HD online source for live sports. Microsoft's Smooth Streaming demo/broadcast of the 2010 Winter Olympics is the only truly HD-and-live sporting event I can recall being available at any sort of scale. (Quality for the downhill was fantastic on a 10 Mbps link, thanks to LimeLight I suppose). ESPN3 quality and selection sucks.

Comcast: Take our 50 channels of QVC and similar crap, please! Here's $120 if you'll take it for a year, you don't even have to watch it!
We still have a choice of providers. The phone company/DSL is an option. Just not a very attractive one at the moment. I suspect, for people who really like watching TV on the internet, Comcast will do something stupid and those customers will switch to the phone company (Verizon, Qwest, whoever) and then Comcast will undo their stupid move or shrink a bit.

The problem with the phone company is just the same - I don't want their phone service (I use ooma). All their advertized rates assume you bundle. I have tried and tried to figure out exactly how much my monthly bill from them would be, and how fast the service to my home would be, and they simply won't tell you.

I suspect that I'm going to be modded into oblivion with this comment. So be it.

TV* is an addiction that's sapping so many of time and energy. How important is Dancing with the Stars, Saturday Night Live and CSI:Whocareswhere? One of the better things that could happen to Western society, IMO, is that there'd be no more "interesting" TV. People would spend more time exercising, engaging in hobbies and talking with others.

I know, I know, everyone watches only three "quality" shows per week - all on the Discovery Channel, natch. That must be why the highest viewership numbers are for the most intellectually barren shows.

Over ten years ago, my wife and I ditched our TV. For the first couple of weeks, in the evenings we were at a loss. There was this "hole" in our lives. But once we got past the withdrawal symptoms, we realized how much we'd been hypnotized by the damned thing. We have so much more time now - and we're a lot fitter (back then I was quite the couch potato with the physique to match). When we visit friends who have TVs, watching proves to be quite boring (and at the same time amazing for how utterly moronic the commercials are - we're no longer desensitized I'm guessing).

Perhaps some will think that I'm a holier-than-thou elitist snob, lying about my lack of TV viewing in an attempt to elevate myself. Whatever. Just try ditching the thing for a few weeks. See what it's like. If you find that your life is really poorer, you can always go back to watching your shows.

Fire away.

*: I use the acronym "TV" now as the generic act of watching entertainment shows - regardless of medium.

I suspect that I'm going to be modded into oblivion with this comment. So be it.

Internetting* is an addiction that's sapping so many of time and energy. How important is Facebook, Twitter and WoW:Whocarespack? One of the better things that could happen to Western society, IMO, is that there'd be no more "interesting" Online. People would spend more time exercising, engaging in hobbies and talking with others.

I know, I know, everyone views only three "quality" websites per week - all about Open Source So

I find watching TV is a good way to just reset after spending the better portion of the day doing more stimulating things. 9 hours of work go by, then I spend 30min to an hour on a musical intrument, a couple hours on the computer programming or working on some other project, then an hour or two either studying something, or reading. Add in food prep. time, cleaning, etc, and it's a busy day. If I want to do something brainless and watch some cartoons after a day as full as that, what's the problem?

While I agree with your general point, I wonder if you’re not understating the positive side of entertainment media. All those shows you listed are what create unifying shared cultural moments – the quintessential water cooler conversation topics. A significant part of what makes American’s American, or the French French, or what have you, is their shared cultural touchstones – which are in turn created, propagated, reified, and dissected in popular media.

All that you mention involves passive viewing. For example, instead of critiquing CSI's poor make-believe science, engage in real science activities. How about looking at the mountains of the Moon through a telescope? Perhaps make said telescope first. Surely such interactive pastimes are more enriching and persistent. How about building and/or learning to fly a model airplane? Build a radio? A musical instrument? Engage in real activities instead of watching fiction.

I stopped watching tv when i went to college about 90%, and have kept with that. usually only gets turned on when some great show to watch in hd is on, or i just want some noise while im working and i dont want to make a playlist. still have to mute the commercials though.

"*: I use the acronym "TV" now as the generic act of watching entertainment shows - regardless of medium."

Many others who complain about the concept of "TV" haven't quite identified what they're complaining about. If you really think about it, the problem is "push TV," which refers to over-the-air or cable/satellite programming. Things like DVRs are half-assed band-aids that only perpetuate the problem because you are stuck to the pushers' schedules. In that sense, push television is a huge technological st

you assume the masses ever used their time wisely. Before TV it was radio, before radio it was vaudville, before vaudville people went to bed @ 7 or 8 due to lack of lighting, but when they did focus on entertainment it was opera or plays (Shakespere's comedies anyone?).

The fact is that throughout human history, the educated have been in the vast minority, and the rest of humanity has been dragged up from out caveman roots by a small % of the population. Why would that change now?

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we stop acting like ready access to TV shows and movies is an inalienable right? Or like we're being repressed as a people when movie and TV studios make watching their content more difficult or comcast decides to limit access to the latest episode of your favorite show?

Hey, I've got an idea. How about we stop acting like ready access to TV shows and movies is an inalienable right?

Comcast is trying to mislead people by citing NBC's market share and it seems to have worked in your case. We're not talking about a right to particular TV shows, but rather the free market when there is no realistic alternatives in many locations for both TV and internet access. What we're talking about are now vital utilities. The ability to access news and wether as well as e-mail, voice and video communications, research topics. I'd assert that data pipes, whether delivering TV programs, music, or rando

NBC's content is a piss in the bucket of the better stuff out there. the BBC produces a lot, as well as a lot of other smaller players. Honestly, content without a big conglomo is right around the corner... NBC will die just like a bad SNL sketch.

Unless, of course, a big conglomerate is allowed to produce content (owns NBC) and also owns the only way to get content (data pipes). It's about leveraging a monopoly (often a localized one) to prevent the free market from acting in the content market.

But it's pretty hard to see how "media" companies can't see that the future is in web streaming and TV programming with was the norm from the 1930's-2008 is just not the future. It's plain to see that that is not what consumers want, regardless it may be harder to push a new show, but I don't have cable and I have found many new shows using the "what's popular" on Hulu. Not that Hulu is the answer but it's a better direction then the Live TV or even TEVO type model. And remember that the "networks" fought h

How much media content should a single corporation own? What if that corporation also is one of the largest cable providers in the US? What if that corporation has a startup service named Xfinity that competes with other streaming services?

These rhetorical questions should serve as red flags that maybe we should not allow Comcast to own NBC. Anyway when was the last time a pre-merger condition from a government agency was honored and actually benefitted t

Level 3 made a deal with Netflix, so Level 3 amped up their own bandwidth and servers to push out Netflix content. Comcast felt their agreement with Level 3 to pass traffic for Level 3 was being abused. So rather than throttling all Level 3 traffic, Comcast decided to block only their competitor, Netflix who they feel is a threat to their business, to temporarily "balance" their traffic passing agreement with Level 3, unless Level 3 pays more to Comcast.

Level 3 made a deal with Netflix, so Level 3 amped up their own bandwidth and servers to push out Netflix content. Comcast felt their agreement with Level 3 to pass traffic for Level 3 was being abused. So rather than throttling all Level 3 traffic, Comcast decided to block only their competitor, Netflix who they feel is a threat to their business, to temporarily "balance" their traffic passing agreement with Level 3, unless Level 3 pays more to Comcast.

Umm , not exactly.

Comcast and L3 have a peering agreement between them that regulates the price of bandwidth used back and forth. If it were a matter of usage only, there would be no problem, as L3 has stated , and as proven by prior suits from L3 against other companies for not honoring the peering agreement charges. This is because Comcast wants to drive prices up on Netflix and other online providers as a base to have a foot in the price war for their own upcoming streaming content solution. They expect

Sorry, but don't confuse me for an idiot; I more simply said what you stated and I prefaced it with "In a Nut Shell." I was simply laying out Comcast's "argument" and what they did to "fix" it. I did mention that Comcast wants to charge more for Netflix content, in a way. I did not elaborate on who ultimately will pay the additional cost or that Comcast will "conveniently" offer "cheaper," alternative content.

I do not support the purchasing of NBC/Universal by Comcast. Don't be fooled it's not a merger;

Until they stop being idiots and assholes, I'll stick with the content delivery that I trust.

and yes I PAY for a private tracker group that has no MPAA or industry lackeys in it. I'd PAY them for the files, but NBC, COmcast and everyone else is not interest in selling them to me. Give me non DRM standard 720p mpeg4 files and I'll give you $1.00 an episode. force DRM on me then I'll look elsewhere as I want to use MY playback system not your cr

"Comcast has been resisting federal regulators' efforts to tear down some of those walls, arguing that those efforts are unnecessary because NBC Universal accounts for about 10 percent of television viewing in the US and less than 10 percent of US box office revenue — and is therefore too small to dictate how the industry will develop."

This is one of the goddamdest disingenuous statements I've heard in a while. If a Comcast spokesperson said this to my face, I would have to be held back from beating t

In the late 1940s the government (through anti-trust action) forced the movie studios to sell off their theater chains and end the practice of forcing theaters to buy (and exhibit) an entire package of films just to get the one film they actually wanted to get.

The government needs to do the same again and break up the vertical content companies, ban content producers from requring cable operators to buy (or sell/bundle) one channel when they want another channel (e.g. where Disney might say that Comcast has

"It won't be long before video from the Internet is always within reach."

I am so confused. Why is a huge leap in comprehension required to go from a typical computer monitor with a diagonal increases of 17-24'' to a standard TV with a diagonal of 35-50'' or more? It is the same LCD based technology. It is not a different type of tool. It does not require a separate cultural upbringing or years of additional technical training to understand the other once you understand one.

Is it just me, or is there no one on slashdot who actually *has* cable tv? Everytime I see anything related to comcast or other networks, I usually take it for a given that there'll be a liberal amount of comments that are just rehashes of "Between the individual network sites, hulu, and netflix, I haven't missed a thing (other than a lot of commercials) by not having cable for the last couple years."

Many of us who have Cable TV (or some other equivalent, like Satellite, FIOS, or U-Verse) just don't have that much to say about them. I for one have yet to really investigate Netflix's offerings, but hulu and the network sites don't really cut it for me, since they still lack some shows I follow.

(By the way, there is no reason to ever navigate directly to a network's site, since Hulu's search will direct you to them if they have the show and Hulu does not.)

> "whether customers can someday realistically drop their cable subscriptions and go online-only for their TV"

Um...what? Someday? I've been doing this for 3 years now, and before that my roommate had it, not I. I can't fathom how or why anyone would ever pay the exorbitant prices for cable television! Seriously...do people think they NEED TV that much? That's just sad... Then again, this is the U.S. we're talking about, where the government had to pay people just so that they wouldn't lose their pr